It can be hard to overstate how scarce the resources available to the Metropolitan Police were in 1888 compared to their modern-day descendants. If Whitechapel was struck by a spree of murders in the 2020s, forensic teams would quickly descend on the site, generating a wealth of information from the body of the victim, their clothes, the surroundings and the local area. There would be CCTV footage covering almost every part of the district, and almost every street, yard, alley and square is well-lit by streetlamps. Forensic pathology would determine when and how the victims died, and which injuries were inflicted before and after death. Physical and psychological profiles of the unknown murderer would be constructed to inform and direct the investigation. Records of shop purchases, pub visits and transport tickets could be scoured for information and patterns. Databases of known people, complete with their DNA, can be interrogated in minutes. The list goes on.
Virtually none of what is described above was even known to the Metropolitan police in 1888, and if it was known, it was not available with anything like the accuracy, scale or speed. When faced with trying to catch Jack the Ripper, police methods were found wanting. Forensic pathology was fairly well developed and could usually indicate when and how someone was killed with a fair degree of accuracy, but even so the various doctors involved in investigating Jack the Ripper’s crimes often differed in their analysis of the weapon(s) used and the level of skill or medical knowledge the murderer possessed.
Fingerprinting had only been suggested as a technique for identifying and tracking people in 1880 and would not be used in criminology until 1892 (and not by the Met until 1901). Blood typing was at least a decade away, and DNA tracing was more than a century into the future. CCTV was similarly non-existent, even as a concept. Even street lighting was absent from much of Whitechapel (and especially the areas where Jack the Ripper committed his crimes). People in the 1880s obviously didn’t leave a ‘digital trail’ that can be picked up and followed with surprising ease by investigators today. Even where following the Ripper’s suspected activities was possible, it would mean combing through dozens of entirely separate and anonymous account books, hotel registers and ticket ledgers hoping to see a pattern that fitted a theory.
With all that said, how did the police try to catch the Ripper? It was primarily by basic and ‘classic’ detective work, using a mix of local knowledge, local contacts and eyewitness reports to gather information, direct lines of inquiry and using intuition and skill to spot patterns or leads in the results.
What became the Ripper investigation started after the murder of Mary Ann Nichols in August 1888. This was the first of the ‘canonical five’ victims, but came after the unsolved murders of two other women earlier in the year and a spree of assaults on prostitutes in Whitechapel by an individual known as ‘Leather Apron’.
Inspector Frederick Abberline was seconded to Whitechapel to lead the police investigation. Abberline had been promoted out of Whitechapel the previous year, but had spent 14 years on patrol and detective work in the district. In keeping with established methods, it was hoped that Abberline’s knowledge of the area, its people and its troublemakers would provide the insight needed to catch the murderer.
The initial line of inquiry was that Mary’s murder (and possibly the other crimes) were related to Whitechapel’s infamous and violent gangs, many of which either acted as pimps for prostitutes or extorted protection money from them. The police had been observing and tracking the activities of these gangs for some time and making arrests where possible. It was hoped that this observation would reveal the murderer(s), backed up by door-to-door questioning and searches in the area to gather information. Increased police patrols were put in place to both deter the murderer, reassure the population and, hopefully, catch a suspect out in the open.
But these were never numerous enough to cover the dense, maze-like streets of Whitechapel quickly or thoroughly. The district had about 500 police constables and just 15 detectives, covering an area with a regular population of about 80,000 and often several times that number in Whitechapel during the working day. There were three times as many prostitutes in Whitechapel as police constables, and three times as many pubs as detectives. Extra men were drafted in, but it remained very hard for the police to gather information quickly enough and to reliably cover the area where the crimes were happening.
The initial investigation seemed to yield quick results when John Pizer, identified by many as ‘Leather Apron’, was arrested and questioned after the murder of Annie Chapman in September. However, he had solid alibis that meant he could not have committed either murder and so was released. The trail went cold, and Pizer would later win several libel cases against newspapers claiming he was ‘Leather Apron’. Other people were followed, questioned and arrested, but no evidence – even circumstantial evidence – was ever attached to a person of interest.
In the battle of wits between Jack the Ripper and the police, the murderer started far ahead and stayed there. This is more a reflection on the primitive techniques and technology available to Abberline and his colleagues, but fundamentally, it’s why Jack the Ripper was never caught.
That said, the Met made some key strategic errors that can’t just be excused by their lack of modern policing knowledge.
One tool available to both the police of 1888 and in the 21st century is the artist’s impression of suspects. Despite the dark conditions in Whitechapel, there were several credible witnesses who saw likely Ripper suspects before or after the murders. However, no official drawings or impressions were ever made or circulated based on the descriptions, and witnesses were never questioned in the level of detail that would be required to draw one, leaving descriptions frustratingly vague. An official artist’s impression could have focused public scrutiny and the flow of information and maybe even prompted identification.
This was part of a broader mistake, where the police almost entirely avoided making use of the press. In this, they were largely caught unawares because the Jack the Ripper case was the first ‘media murder’, with the investigation carried out under the full glare of publicity in a way that would be familiar to modern police officers. Hundreds of newspapers and magazines, some printing daily, covered the horrific murders that were happening in the capital, and the official stance of the Met and the Home Office was to feed little or no information to the press. This was for perfectly understandable reasons – they didn’t want to give out information about their investigation or theories that could be as useful to the murderer as they would be to journalists. But it’s in contrast to modern practice of providing regular official statements and press conferences.
They were also aware that ethnic and political tensions were high in Whitechapel (and other parts of London) and that official announcements that the police were investigating people in a certain ethnic, social or political group had a real risk of sparking riots or even a spree of attacks and murders in retaliation. This had come close to happening earlier in the year, thanks to lurid and rabble-rousing press coverage of the ‘Leather Apron’ attacks.
In the absence of official information, the press largely supplied its own. Journalists descended on Whitechapel to make their own enquiries, interviewing witnesses, following police from door to door, and talking to recently interrogated residents. Others tried to bribe officials for information. At times, there were more journalists on the streets of Whitechapel than police constables. And the information they gathered and printed, and the wild theories and accusations that resulted, only muddied the waters further. To boost sales and keep interest high, some journalists took to introducing their own ‘evidence’ in the form of letters and notes purporting to be from Jack the Ripper, on top of the volume of pranks, frauds and ‘helpful’ tips and suggestions from the general public. These include two of the most famous items in the Jack the Ripper casefile – the ‘Dear Boss’ letter and the ‘Saucy Jack’ postcard – which are now widely believed to be the work of a local journalist. Sifting through this correspondence absorbed a huge amount of police effort.
In modern profiling terms, Jack the Ripper was an ‘organised killer,’ who took care to select his victims and the time and place of his crimes.
Inspector Abberline and his men investigated each victim’s personal and social circumstances – her friends, family and acquaintances, where she lived, where she ate and drank, her routines – hoping to find a common thread that could produce a lead. This was a core principle of Victorian detective work, especially when multiple crimes were in play. But there were none. The five victims didn’t know each other and – almost incredibly given the close nature of life in Whitechapel and their shared poverty and trade – their lives barely overlapped in any way more significant than two of them being known to have frequented the same pub.
With Victorian technology, forensics, police methods and criminology, it was always going to be very hard for the police to catch Jack the Ripper. Whitechapel in 1888 was almost the perfect place for such a killer, making it possible for him to enter, select a victim, commit the murder and escape in a short time and without being seen or even arousing much suspicion if he was. The Victorians assumed that someone capable of carrying out the gruesome, anatomical murders of Jack the Ripper would have been clearly mad or disturbed in some way, and that their behaviour and lifestyle would be unusual in some way – no normal person could be Jack the Ripper.
In fact, modern understanding would suggest the opposite. In all likelihood, Jack the Ripper would appear as an unremarkable and unnoticeable individual. This (at least) superficial normality would have been key to gaining the trust of his victims, who would, unknowingly, help lead him to the perfect place to commit murder unobserved. And the fact that no significant person of interest, let alone an actual suspect, was ever found shows that, whoever they were, the murderer did not arouse any suspicion in the weeks between (or after) his crimes that were so horrific that they still fascinate and chill us well over a century later. Fundamentally, it’s this mismatch between the theories and methods available to the police and the nature of the killer that was why Jack the Ripper was never caught, and the Jack the Ripper crimes were never solved.
You can learn more about the history of Jack the Ripper and why Jack the Ripper was never caught on one of Jack the Ripper Tours’ fact-filled and exciting walking tours of Whitechapel. Our expert guides will take you to the key locations in London’s most infamous crimes. Contact us to book a tour or find out more information.
![Jack-the-Ripper-Suspect[1]](https://thejacktherippertour.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Jack-the-Ripper-Suspect1.jpg "Jack-the-Ripper-Suspect[1]")
